The Sons of Gondolin
by Luthorin
Summary: The early days in Gondolin of three young elves and one elfling. Once Glorfindel had said, "I remember a small elfling with inky black hair running after my friend, his brother." This is the beginning of their friendship. Glorfindel, Ecthelion, Erestor, OC


The Sons of Gondolin

Chapter 1: The New Recruits

Genre: Drama, Family

Rate: T

Summary: The early days in Gondolin of three young elves and one elfling. Once Glorfindel had said, "I remember a small elfling with inky black hair running after my friend, his brother." This is the beginning of their friendship. Glorfindel, Ecthelion, Erestor, OC.

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Glorfindel was excited. Today, he and his friends would be new cadets for the Academy of Gondolin Army, where young elves were trained to be soldiers in the future. Glorfindel knew he would be a soldier someday. He wanted to protect his home, his city and his loved ones. Besides, the House of Golden Flower always held the position of captain of Gondolin for generations.

"Here he comes." Ecthelion, the young lord of the House of the Fountain and Glorfindel's best friend, pointed to another young elf approaching them.

"Hey, Erethion, here!" Glorfindel waved his hand to Erethion, the lord of the House of Butterfly.

"Good morning, Glorfindel, Ecthelion." Erethion smiled to his friend. Erethion always smiled. He could smile in any situation. Glorfindel thought he was the most optimistic elf in Gondolin. Sometimes, Erethion's smile made Glorfindel creep out of his skin because he didn't even know that Erethion's smiles were because of his pure optimistic nature or just insanity. However, Erethion's angelic features always made Glorfindel forget about the insanity part.

"What is that?"

Ecthelion pointed to something lurking behind Erethion.

"That's a 'who', Thel." Glorfindel corrected his friend.

Behind Erethion, there was a small elfling, not taller than Erethion's waist, with inky long black hair and very big chocolate brown eyes, grabbing Erethion's robe tightly.

Glorfindel sat on his chins to have his eyes at the same level with the elfling.

"Good morning, pen-neth." The golden hair elf smiled tenderly to the elfling, who instantly hid his face in Erethion's robe.

"This is Erestor, my little brother." Erethion turned to talk to his brother. "Tor, these are my friends, come out and introduce yourself."

"Brother?" Ecthelion took a look at the elfling. "He's too pretty to be your brother, Thion."

" . You are funny, Thel." Erethion laughed, which this time Glorfindel knew it was sarcastic.

"Mae Govannen, pen-neth." Glorfindel offered his hand to the elfling. "I'm Glorfindel, from the House of Golden Flower. Nice to meet you."

The elfling's eyes shone brightly. They were the most beautiful eyes Glorfindel had ever seen. The small hand reached to his bigger hand and touched it reluctantly.

"Erestor from the House of Butterfly. Nice to meet you too, Lord Glorfindel."

There was something from the small hand that touched his hand that made Glorfindel felt like a warm wave of energy running into his body.

"Wow." Ecthelion cried. "I didn't expect that he would introduce himself this fluently. Thion, your brother is something!"

Erestor glared at the Fountain lord.

"Shut up, Thel." Glorfindel and Erethion said in unison.

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"Doesn't your brother follow you today, Thion?"

Glorfindel asked his friend first thing when he didn't see the small elfling running after his friend.

It had been a week since the young lords became the members of the academy. The three friends were considered to be the best recruits the academy ever gotten.

"Nay." Erethion shook his head. "Nana just found out that he followed me here every day. She prohibited him for coming here until he is older. He was locked up in the library in our house."

"Poor elfling." Ecthelion muttered. He's quite fond of the elfling somehow. "I'm sorry for him."

"Don't be." Erethion chuckled. "The second thing he loves the most besides being with me is reading. Locking up in the library is like a reward for him."

"I guess as much." Glorfindel laughed. That elfling would be the boss some day. He thought.

In the past week, Erestor had been perching on the wall, hiding behind a shadowy column or a tree branch, watching them having their training. It felt strength that those big eyes were not here watching them today.

In the evening, Glorfindel finished changing his cloth before his friends. When he stepped outside the academy gate, he found the familiar small elfling in dark tunic and black trousers with.. a pair of slippers, sitting on a bench outside the wall.

"Good evening, pen-neth." Glorfindel smiled widely. He missed this little elfling greatly. "How have you been?"

"Good evening, Lord Glorfindel." The elfling greeted back politely.

"Erethion told me you were not allowed to come here. How come you're here anyway?" Glorfindel sat on the bench beside the small elf.

"I sneaked out." Erestor replied no challengingly.

"What!?" Glorfindel cried out loudly. "How? Why?"

"One, I sneaked out. Two, the library has so many secret passages. Three, I want to. Anymore question?"

"You will be in trouble when you get back home." Glorfindel sighed.

"No, if Nana doesn't know." The elfling smiled wickedly.

"Really, Erestor." Glorfindel shook his head. "How old are you?" He's wiser beyond his age, that's for sure.

"Old enough."

"Not enough to be allowed to come here." The golden lord raised his eyebrow challengingly, then laughed out loud when he saw Erestor's pout. This elfling was so adorable.

Suddenly, there was a commotion inside the gate. Many cadets and soldiers ran toward the academy gate quickly.

"What is happening?" Glorfindel grabbed a cadet's arm to ask.

"Cadets, fighting!" He answered and continued running to the academy.

"You wait here! I'll go inside." Glorfindel told the elfling and made to leave, but Erestor grabbed the helm of his tunic tightly. "You. Stay. Here!"

"No." Erestor said calmly. "I'll go with you."

"We don't know what has happened in there. It may be dangerous!"

"You can protect me."

They stared at each other until Glorfindel gave up and sighed, defeated.

"Alright, but you must allow me to carry you. I won't risk for someone to step on you."

Erestor opened his arms for Glorfindel to lift him up to sit on his arm. The small arms circled around Glorfindel's neck securely.

"Don't tell anybody." Erestor gritted his teeth.

Glorfindel chuckled softly. He felt that this would not be the last time he would held Erestor like this.

They entered the academy and found dozens of elves circling around someone, cheering loudly. Glorfindel made their way until they could see what happened there.

"Thel! Thion!"

Glorfindel shouted when he saw who were at the center of the ring. Ecthelion and Erethion, standing in fighting position, were surrounded by half dozen older cadets.

"Come on, you orcs!" Ecthelion spoke hotly.

"You thought you're so tough, huh, elflings?" One of the older cadets sneered. "You are just the lords' spoil brats, using your fathers' connection to come here!" His fellow elves cheered. Some of the surrounding elves also agreed with him and nodded their heads, but some shook their heads in disagreement, especially the new recruits in the same class as the three young lords. They had seen what the lords' sons are capable of.

"I have to put you down." Glorfindel whispered to Erestor. "Go find somewhere save where you can see us."

Erestor nodded. When he was on his feet, he grabbed Glorfindel's hand and said.

"Go get them!"

"Ai, my lord." Glorfindel smiled and stepped toward his friends.

"What's happening here?" The golden lord stood between his friends and their opponents. His tall and well built features were intimidating, even in the eyes of the older elves.

"Here comes the golden brat." The head of the older cadets spoke loudly, and drew some laugh from his followers.

"Did you step on his toe or something?" Glorfindel raised his eyebrow while asking his friends. "He looks like he's in pain.. or something." This also drew some laugh from the surrounding elves.

"Nay, we were just leaving the changing room when these elves cornered us." Erethion answered.

"They may want to befriend us." Glorfindel smiled. "Let me introduce ourselves. I'm Glorfindel and these are Ecthelion and Erethion. Nice to meet you."

"We know who you are!" Another older cadet shouted.

"Then what business do you want to discuss with us? I'll be glad to help."

"Shut it, young brat!" The older elf barked. "You need to learn how things go around here, you arrogant brats."

"And how can we learn? From you?" Glorfindel raised his eyebrow skeptically.

"What do you think?" The leader smirked.

"I think it's quite not fair. Three to six, really? You should bring more of your friends."

Behind the golden lord, Ecthelion and Erethion slapped their forehead mentally. They knew they were good, but not that good. Three against six was alright, a bit hard, but they could manage. They did not need more opponents right now.

"Let's get them!"

One of the older cadets darted toward Glorfindel with his fit raised. Glorfindel, who was ready for the attack, sidestepped and hit the attacker at his belly hard.

"STOP!"

All eye turned to look at the source of the voice terrifyingly.

"Master Gillas!"

All cadets straightened up and bowed to the new comer who was their head trainer of the academy.

"This is the academy of Gondolin. It's not the place for you to fight each other like scrumming dogs."

Everyone could not meet the master's eyes.

"Can anyone tell me what the reason of this unacceptable behavior is?"

Several surrounded elves told the master of what they saw. Gillas nodded his head. He could guess as much. The three young lords were famous even though they just attended the academy only one week. Some older cadets might not appreciate that.

"As the cadets of this academy, if you want to fight, you can fight. However, it must be in the academy's rules. You must fight as the honorable soldiers. Tomorrow at dawn, there will be a competition between the new recruits and the senior ones. The enrollment will be opened in the morning. I expect to see you at the training field early." He looked at his students one by one. "Is it clear?"

"Aye, Master Gillas!"

"You are dismissed."

"Aye, thank you, Master Gillas!"

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"Are you going to fight tomorrow?"

Erestor asked the older elves after they left the academy.

"Of course." Glorfindel replied.

"Our opponents are the older cadets. They have been trained for years. I'm not certain that we can defeat them." Erethion, the ever calm one in the group, said worriedly.

"Then we should have plans." Ecthelion spoke cheerily.

Glorfindel and Ecthelion looked at Erethion expectantly.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Erethion glared at his friends.

"You are the wisest in our group. Think of something!" Ecthelion exclaimed.

Erethion sighed.

"What do you think, Tor?" He asked his baby brother who was walking beside him.

"The competition will be between the new cadets and the older ones, right?" The elfling said thoughtfully.

"Right."

"Then you need to gather your classmates to fight with you and back you up."

"How can we persuade them?" Ecthelion asked.

"Tell them that if you, the new cadets, won't fight, you all will be bully for the rest of the academy lives and beyond."

"That sounds dramatic. I like it!" Glorfindel smiled. "Shall we start?"

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The dawn had come.

The training field was crowded with many people; the cadets, the trainers, the king's soldiers and other people who had heard of the competition. News in Gondolin traveled faster than anything, Glorfindel pondered.

Glorfindel and his friends could recruit many of their classmates to join them in the competition. Thanks to Erestor, his tactic worked so well with the new cadets.

He was so glad when he saw the elfling walking to the practice field with his brother.

"I'm glad you can come, pen-neth. Did you sneak out again?" Glorfindel asked.

"Nay." Erethion replied. "I asked mother to bring him here today. I told her there's an important event that Tor should come to see since he will attend the academy in the future."

"And your mother bought that?"

"With a lot of persuasions, of course." Erethion laughed.

"What will we face today?" Erethion asked.

"I think we'll have to play 'Rescue the hostage' today." Ecthelion replied.

"What is it?" Erestor asked.

"It's a training game. There are two teams against each other. The team must rescue the hostage from the opponent team. If one team can get their hostage to their base, the game is over. Then we will have to count the score. You get your hostage to the base, you get ten points. Kill your opponent, you get one point each. Get more hostage from your opponent, you get three points each." Ecthelion explained.

"Even though, you get your hostage back, doesn't mean you'll win the game, right?"

"Right."

"How will we know which one is killed, which is captured?"

"We will use wooden blade with paint. There will be marks on our body when we are stabbed or slashed."

"And capture?"

"You are knocked on the head and brought to the side of the field." Ecthelion explained.

"How many people are in each team?"

"As much as we can get."

"Then we have a disadvantage here." Erethion sighed. "We have fewer players, less experience, less training and even less strength."

"But we have the butterfly brothers!" Glorfindel smiled. "I'm certain nobody in that team is clever than you two!"

"Where did you get that confident?" Erethion groaned.

"How many people are on each team?" Erestor asked.

"32 in our team and 45 in their team." Glorfindel replied.

"Are you the team captain?" Erestor asked the golden lord.

"It seems like that." Glorfindel mumbled.

"How do you categorize the players?"

"We will send one to be a hostage, one on the side to watch the game and plan the strategy, some will go help the hostage, some will capture and some will be assassins."

"What direction do you plan to go; kill as much as you can, capture to get point or rescue to end the game?" Erethion asked this time.

"If we see this as a real battle, the main purpose is to rescue. We don't want to kill and we don't want to lose our soldiers." Ecthelion nodded in agreement with his friend.

"Then rescue we will." Erethion nodded his head. "I will be the observer, right?"

"Yes." Glorfindel nodded. "This way Erestor can be with you and help even though in the real battle there will be no chance I'll let this elfling into the battle."

"I'll call our team then." Ecthelion gathered the team of 32 new cadets to have their first meeting. Glorfindel explained their strategy to the team and everybody agreed.

"Ecthelion and I will go for the rescue; I need two more to guard us." A couple cadets raised their hands. "Four guards to protect the hostage?" Fore hands were raised. "Who volunteer to be the hostage? Linnel?" Glorfindel asked a smallest elf in the team.

"Alright." Linnel accepted.

"Erethion will be the observer. Everybody takes orders from him."

"Aye!"

"For our future in this academy, let's go win this game!"

"Yeah!"

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Erestor watched the game from the side of the field with his brother. He knew his brother wanted to go playing the game in the field with his friends, but for the chance to win, someone needed to be on the side and Erethion was good in planning than his friends.

The game had started. The hostages were tied up at the pole on the platform at each end of the field, which resembled the base of each team.

Every players were bare chests and had a piece of cloth tied around their upper arms; new cadets with blue and older cadets with red. Their weapons were painted with wet paint of their team colors.

"Let's the game begin!"

After Master Gillas' announcement, both team roared and attacked.

"What do you think of the other team's tactic?" Erethion asked his baby brother's opinion.

"I think they want to kill as much as they can. They do not attempt to rescue the hostage since they found that there were guards around the pole."

"Yes, I see as much."

Glorfindel, Ecthelion and two more cadets were approaching the opponent's base quickly. They were outnumber, so they needed to end this game as soon as possible before everyone in the team was killed.

"Would you like to sit on my shoulder for a better look?" Erethion offered.

"Aye, thanks brother."

Now Erestor had a better look to the battle field.

"Tell Glorfindel to go to the right, there were less people there."

Erethion sent the signal.

"We already lost 4 people and 3 captures. That's 13 points. But we got just 2 kills and 2 captures. That's 8 points."

Now Glorfindel and his rescue team arrived at the opponent's base. Two guards charged and killed one of them.

"Thel, go untied Linnel! Sora and I will take care of these two!"

Erestor and Erethion watched the rescue mission carefully.

"Thel, to the right!" Erethion shouted.

They watched Ecthelion untied the hostage and helped him to get out of the platform. Glorfindel and Sora rushed to be on their sides and fended off the opponents.

"The red team is getting to the hostage." Erestor mumbled. "We need to end this game as soon as possible. We are 14 marks behind."

Glorfindel and his team made their way to half of the field now.

"We need one capture and one kill." Erestor told his brother.

"One capture and one kill?" Erethion raised his eyebrow and smirked. "Right."

"Fin, hold it right there! We need one kill and one capture, fast!" Erethion shouted.

Glorfindel nodded and signal Ecthelion and Sora to go ahead and waited near the base. They needed more points to win this game. The nearest opponent was captured easily. One more kill to go.

One more of the blue team fell.

"Two kills!" Erethion shouted.

"It's not that easy!" Glorfindel shouted back. No opponent wanted to fight with Glorfindel. The blue team tried their best not to be killed or captured.

"Blue retreated!" Erethion shouted. Everybody in blue team retreated and grouped together to defend themselves.

"Can we kill the hostage?" Erestor asked.

"No."

"Well. Can Glorfindel kill two by himself?"

"In this condition? No. He's too exhausted and the opponents are too many. He might be killed after he kills two." Erethion explained.

"Then we have to send two to get two."

"Alright." Erethion nodded. "Fin, Thel, two, sacrifice!" He shouted.

"Damn you, Thion!" Glorfindel cursed, and, with Ecthelion, he charged.

The suicide mission was too quick. The two lords attacked the red team and killed two each. They were surrounded by the opponents. They managed to make some of the opponents injured before they were killed.

"Sora! Go!" Erethion shouted for Sora to take the rescued hostage to their base.

The sound of horn blowing was heard to signal the end of the game.

"Good game, cadets!" Master Gillas said after the two teams were lined up in front of him. "We shall count the score."

Everybody was so excited except for the butterfly brothers who already knew the result.

"The red team got 7 captures and 12 kills. It's 33 points!"

The red team roared with delight.

"The blue team got 5 captures and 8 kills. It's 23 points!"

The red team roared louder.

"What!?" Ecthelion cursed.

"And the blue team got another 10 points for the rescue. It's 33 points in total! Congratulations both team. It's a draw!"

"What!?" This time both Glorfindel and Ecthelion cursed, but everybody in the blue team cheered loudly. They didn't expect to win or even get the same score with their senior cadets. It's beyond their expectation.

"Erethion, do you have anything to say?" Glorfindel glared at his friend.

"Do I?" Erethion smiled innocently.

"Yes." Ecthelion raised his eyebrow to his friend.

"It's for the good course." Erethion's smile faltered. "If we won, the senior cadets would be embarrassed. They would hate us even more. In the future, if we need their cooperation, it would not be easy. For our team, you are already their leaders. They will follow you till the end. Because of your sacrificing and your bravery, I bet in the real battle, you would sacrifice yourselves to safe others, wouldn't you?'"

"Aye, you are right." Ecthelion agreed.

"Trust the butterfly brothers to come up with the plan." Glorfindel shook his head.

"I didn't do anything." Erestor smiled and looked at Glorfindel with his big brown eyes.

"Right." Glorfindel mumbled sarcastically.

"Shall we have a drink or two to celebrate our win-win plan?" Ecthelion asked.

"Sure, all 32 of us plus one." Glorfindel clapped Erethion's back not so lightly. "Your treat, Thion."

"What?" Erethion cried. "Why?"

"You are the only one who hasn't dropped a sweat." Glorfindel whistled and walked to the changing room with Ecthelion and left Erethion and Erestor, who didn't need to change their clothes, at the practice field.

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[..tbc..]

A/N: This story may be considered as the same universe as 'The Dance' and 'Shadows', but you don't need to read those stories to understand this one. I hope I didn't make the elves especially Erethion and Erestor too Mary Sue or Garry Stu, that is. Sorry for any mistakes. Thank you for reading this story. Review please, so I can improve my writing and the progress of the story. Thank you very much.

Luthorin :)


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